Johan ‘N0tail’ Sundstein

Real name: Johan Sundstein

Country: Denmark

Alias: N0tail, Big Daddy N0tail

Position: Co-founder and captain of OG Organisation (sponsored by Red Bull)

InGame Role: Carry role for OG aka support

At 26 years old the Forbes ’30 under 30’ Danish professional esports athlete Johan Sundstein, better known as “N0tail”, has already left an indelible mark on the world of esports. Following years of playing Dota 2 (Defense of the Ancients 2) for major organisations such as Fnatic, Cloud9 and Team Secret, Sundstein decided to take his career into his own hands and establish the organisation – OG – with his teammates. In a under five years OG, sponsored by Redbull, would go from a team of last chance wildcard players to become the first team to win back-to-back champions, and in turn see Sundstein become esports top prize-winning player of all time*.

Sundstein’s passion for gaming started at the tender of 2 years old where, as his mother put it best, “he was obsessed with gaming” thanks to discovering Nintendo’s classic Gameboy early on and later moving to computers. Around 12-13 years old Sundstein his skill started to draw much attention from his friends and fellow players leading eventually leading Sundstein to joining Fnatic’s Heroes of Newerth roster. From here Sundstein would gone to become one of the youngest competitive Heroes of Newerth players in the world.  In 2012 Sundstein transferred to Fnatic’s European Dota 2, where he and his Fnatic.EU teammates won Thor Open LAN. Following stints playing for organisations Cloud9 and Team Secret, Sundstein announced in August 2015 that he would be founding and joining a new organisation called (monkey) Business, which later became OG.

Co-founded by Sundstein and his teammates, OG formed to mark the Dota 2 tournament the Frankfurt Major, also known as the Fall Major. Comprising of Fly, Cr1t, Miracle, MoonMeander and N0tail, the team walked away as winners of the first ever Valve sponsored Major. From here Sundstein and OG teammates went on to win the 2016 Manila Major, the 2016 Boston Major and the 2017 Kiev Major, becoming the first team in Dota 2 history to win 4 x Dota Major Championships.

Due to their success in the Major champions, OG had earned a reputation as a force to be reckoned with however, when it came to the world’s biggest esport event – The International – silverware eluded them. Although OG were seeded for the top spots at The International in both 2016 and 2017, the team came out short on both occasions ending in disheartening failure for a team that were highly regarded as the tournament favourites. Rather than accept failure, Sundstein decided to stick to his promise of creating an esports organisation focused on player improvement and one worthy of global recognition.

In the 2018 OG re-emerged armed with new strategies and having honed their InGame skills, Sundstein and his teammates returned to The International champions as heavily regarded underdogs. Despite a bad start in the group stage OG would go on to produce the most incredible underdog story in the history of esports. Roaring on to win The International 2018 Dota 2 champions in impressive fashion and breaking any curse or confidence beliefs they suffered from their double loss in previous years.

12 months later in Shanghai, OG made their title defence at The International 2019. With the world’s esports community watching, Sundstein’s and his teammates introduced strategies as creative as they were puzzling for their opponents, much to the delight of the millions of fans watching. Dominating both the group stage and the main event, OG ended their first title defence by lifting the Aegis of the Immortal trophy a second time, becoming the first esports team to win back-to-back champions for the highest-profile and most lucrative gaming competition in the world. OG’s triumph at The International 2019 also meant that their collected sum of prize money earnings for their back-to-back wins was $26.8 million. Making team captain Johan “N0tail” Sundstein the top prizing-earning esports player of all time with personal earnings of $6.9 million, and a total team prize earnings from 2012-2019 to $30.2 million.

A 2 x Winners of the World’s biggest esports tournament The International and 4 x Major Winner with his team of major Dota 2 Championships, Sundstein’s presence in the world of esports has transcended to the wider world with his audience on Twitter (222.2k), Facebook (53k) and Instagram (183k) seeing him generate over 1.6 million weekly impressions. Whilst the shared OG team accounts have a growing following of fans across Twitter (561k), Facebook (246k) and Instagram (232k) showing the impressive interest from fans around team OG’s activity.

Closing the last decade as the most financially successful esports pro-player and with a string of champion trophies and successes to his name, as well as wide spread media coverage from mainstream outlets that include Forbes, Redbull, ESPN and BBC,  Johan ‘N0tail’ Sundstein now has his eyes on more InGame triumphs with his history making OG teammates, as well as a string of personal esports player goals and targets.

For many esports is on the tipping point of becoming a major global industry but for Sundstein esports is already there. With over 400 million viewers worldwide and growing, experts have earmarked esports as the next billion-dollar sporting entertainment industry. So, the real question is how long until Johan ‘N0tail’ Sundstein becomes a household name?

* according to statistics site Esports Earnings.

Awards //

1st – The International 2018
1st – MDL Macau 2017
1st – Kiev Major 2017
1st – Boston Major 2016
1st – ESL One Frankfurt 2016
1st – Manila Major 2016
1st – DreamLeague Season 5
1st – DreamLeague Season 4
1st – Frankfurt Major 2015

Current team members //

Anathan ‘ana’ Pham
Topias ‘Topson’ Taavitsainen
Sébastien ‘Ceb’ Debs
Jesse ‘JerAx’ Vainikka
Johan ‘N0tail’ Sundstein (Team captain)